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The Birth of Aubree Grace Donice
I went in to L&D on Tuesday, February 21 around 10:30 am after waking up and thinking I felt a gush. They tested me for amniotic fluid, hooked me up to the monitors and determined that my water hadn’t broken, but that I was contracting some, even though I couldn’t feel it. I decided to tell my mom to go ahead and come up because I was nervous. They were also sending me for an ultrasound because the doctor was worried about the baby’s size. She said that it might be causing me to not dilate or efface the way I was supposed to. So we went in for an ultrasound that afternoon. They said that the baby was between 7.4 lbs and 9.4 lbs. It was just too far along in the pregnancy to be able to determine real accurately. They also said that I had an excess of fluid. So we went to go eat dinner, and I started having some contractions I could feel, but nothing very regular. My doctor told me to go in when I started feeling them 6-7 minutes apart so that I could have the GBS antibiotics. After dinner we watched a movie and then went to bed. Around 12:00 am I started having contractions that were about 20 minutes apart. By 2:00 am they were 10 minutes apart and by 3:00 am they were about 8 minutes apart. My mom and I decided then that we should get our stuff together and head to the hospital. We went back to L&D and they put me in a room again and hooked me up to the monitors again. They checked me and this time I was 2 cm dilated, but 90% effaced. They decided to go ahead and admit me.
They got me in a room and rehooked up and everything. My doula had been in a delivery the day before for 24 hours so she had to send a different doula. Her name was Cara, and she was such a sweetheart. She got me ice, popsicles, and even a rocking chair. I was really uncomfortable in the bed. I didn’t feel like I had any control over my contractions. They weren’t terribly painful, but they were bad enough. Rocking through them helped me a lot. I’d say that I labored 75-85% in that rocking chair. The details now are kind of fuzzy. Nothing really very exciting happened and I don’t remember exact times. I just know that I labored for what seems like forever. I really wish that I could have stayed home longer but I was so freaked out about not getting enough of the medication for the GBS. At 4:00 pm on the 22nd, the doula that I had had another patient come in so they had to have another one come in and take care of me. Her name was Kim. She was so sweet. I loved them both. And neither of them made me feel like I was being passed off. They both took great care of me. At 6:00 pm they broke my water. The thing they broke my water with looked like a crochet hook! And it just FLOODED out of me. They said that there was over a liter, and throughout the night I had additional FLOODS. There was so much. They weren’t joking when they said I had an excess. My doctor said she’d never seen that much amniotic fluid. Then they laughed at me, haha. After that, they kept saying “You’ll dilate real fast now.” At one point, I wanted to tell them to shut up, because every time they said that, it seemed like it slowed down rather than sped up. Around 10:00 pm, I made it to a 9. (That doesn’t seem real fast to me.) Somewhere in there, they had to start pitocin to make my contractions more productive. My contractions were “coupling” rather than having a contraction, break, and then another contraction. I’d peak, come down, have another little hill, and then have a long time in between the next contraction. So they put me on the pitocin thinking it’d speed it up. It didn’t really. It kind of did, but not as fast as they wanted it too. Around 2:00 am on the 23rd, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I had been in labor for SO long and was hurting SO bad. I was so tired. And I was only at a 9 ½. I told them that if they wanted, I’d get the epidural. So the anesthesiologist came in and did the epidural, I tried to relax some. It only really worked on one side of my body, but I guess that’s better than not at all. 20 minutes after the epidural was placed, I felt the urge to push. It was so relieving to finally feel that. So they called my doctor, got everything set up and it was go time. I don’t know how many pushes it took. I tried to count, but after a while I lost count. The nurses told me it took about 45 minutes. My poor doula locked her knees and got dizzy, went out in the hall and passed out. I felt so bad for her. She made it back in after having some water. My mom wanted desperately to be on “the business end” of things. She did get to watch a couple of contractions. A nurse switched places with her so she could watch. She was so funny, and so were the nurses and my doctor. “She has dark hair!” And all I could say was “No, she’s my baby! My baby won’t have hair, cause I have such thin hair!” They thought that was funny. I’m glad that the epidural didn’t work all that well. I could still feel the pushing. Not just the urge, the actual sensation and everything. Pain and all. It wasn’t as bad as I was afraid it’d be after 26 hours of labor. It really did feel good. It was a good kind of pain. I didn’t want the epidural at all so I’m glad it was light. They gave me a button thingy I could push when I needed more. I pushed it once before the pushing started and then never again.
When she came out, her hand was by her face. That’s so funny too because her hand was by her face in EVERY ultrasound. So cute. They put her right on my chest after she was born, but she was dusky colored and not crying real well. They had to do her APGAR three times. She scored a 4, 6 and an 8. She swallowed some fluid on the way out and they just couldn’t get her suctioned good. They called the NICU nurses down, which freaked me out. They assessed her and decided that she didn’t need to come with them that she could just go to the nursery for transition. So we didn’t get our skin to skin. At that point it didn’t matter to me. I just wanted her to be ok. They let me hold her a few minutes before they took her. So it wasn’t a scary whisking away of her. I got to tell her hello and that I loved her. We even had time for some pictures. She was so beautiful.
I had a second degree tear. She didn’t tell me how many stitches I had to have because she did a running stitch. She had to use a local anesthetic because my epidural was SO effective. Haha. I wasn’t so concerned with that. I only had eyes for Aubree. She was born at 4:09 am on February 23, 2012. She was 7 lbs 9 oz and 19 ¾ inches long.
One thing I forgot to mention is that my poor nurses! They ALL spent all that time chasing her on the monitors. They’d get her on it, and stand up and get ready to go and she’d move off of it. So they’d get her set again and leave, just to have to come back 10 minutes later. So in addition to having the most fluid, I had the most active baby they’d ever seen! We laughed the whole time about that.
After she was born, they took her to the nursery to “transition.” They brought her back a few hours later. That was good. By then we’d had food and some sleep. Mom and I were rested and ready to snuggle on her. She’s got lots of dark hair, and she looks a lot like her daddy. She’s colored a lot like him. She has very olive colored skin, whereas I’m pasty white. She has long fingers like me, and long toes like her aunt (my sister). Her pinky toes, though, curl under just like her daddy’s. Not sure what color her eyes will be yet. She has my nose too, I think. Sometimes when I’m trying to wake her up, she looks at me just like her daddy looks at me. Like “Please leave me alone, I’m perfectly content sleeping.”

I don't think I've forgotten anything super important. Just that I'm SO in love.

Congrats! I'm surprised they gave you an epi so late as well. At that point was when I really wanted one as well. And the pushing is totally the best part. I loved it, it hurt but I agree that's it's a good type of pain and I'd love to do that part over again any day. Especially since the baby comes right after.